Nnamdi Kanu Pleads not Guilty to Treason Charges, Remanded in Kuje Prison

The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra and founder of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, whose arrest sparked a wave of protests by supporters in Nigeria’s southeast, pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday on treason charges. Nnamdi Kanu last month refused to enter a plea when he was first charged with “treasonable felony”, arguing he had no confidence in the then trial judge.
The call was made on Radio Biafra, of which Kanu is director, and was done “with (the) intention to levy war against Nigeria”, according to the charge sheet. He was also charged with managing an unlawful society, unlawful possession of firearms and concealing an import of a radio transmitter. Kanu, who also heads the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group, was arrested by the Department of State Services, DSS, in October when he arrived in the country from London, where the radio station is based.But at a hearing before a new judge in the federal high court in Abuja on Wednesday, he denied a six-count indictment and was remanded in custody until a bail application on January 25. The prosecution alleges Kanu and others at large in Britain between 2014 and last year called for some southern states to secede from Nigeria to form an independent Republic of Biafra.
He has emerged as the new face of the campaign for a separate Biafran state, nearly 50 years after a previous unilateral declaration of independence sparked a brutal civil war. The conflict from 1967 to 1970 left some one million people dead, many from starvation and disease, as Nigerian troops blockaded the fledgling Republic of Biafra.